How Collaroy Beach Reserve was saved for the public through resumptions
The resumption of beachside land at Collaroy in 1925 and 1947 created valuable reserves for the public good
Manly
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These days, the only land behind Collaroy Beach between Birdwood Ave and Jenkins St not in public lands is that occupied by Arlington Hall.
But prior to 1925, all of that land was in private hands and only came into public ownership due to resumptions gazetted in 1925 and 1947.
And even Arlington Hall could have fallen into public hands in 1938 if Warringah councillors had had their wits about them.
The entire coastline between Eastbank Collaroy and the outlet of Narrabeen Lagoon, as well as Collaroy Plateau, was granted to John Ramsay in 1818, sold to D’Arcy Wentworth in 1823 and sold to James Jenkins in the same year.
The land, comprising 166ha, remained in the Jenkins family until 1877, when it was bought by John Wetherill, who promptly subdivided the coastal part of the land as the Mount Ramsay Estate the same year.
Many of the lots along the beachfront sold quickly and by the early 1900s a number of houses and shops had been built between Eastbank Ave and Jenkins St.
The land immediately south of the Mount Ramsay Estate was part of 202ha that was granted to William Cossar in 1819 and had also ended up in the hands of the Jenkins family.
Cossar’s grant, along with other properties owned by the Jenkins family, was given to the Salvation Army by Elizabeth Jenkins in 1894 in return for an annual annuity for herself and her family and a guarantee by the Salvation Army that it would protect her financially if depositors in a failed bank of which she was a shareholder tried to recoup their losses from her.
In the years before and after World War I, the Salvation Army subdivided some of the land they had received from Elizabeth Jenkins, including a small parcel of land immediately south of the Mount Ramsay Estate that was east of Pittwater Rd and either side of Birdwood Ave which, when subdivided, was called the Picnic Grounds Estate.
It meant that by the mid-1920s, all of the land immediately behind the beach from Birdwood Ave to Jenkins St was in private hands and much of it had been built upon.
As early as 1908, Warringah Council had expressed interest in some of the beachfront land being resumed but it lacked the money and failed to excite the state government’s interest in resuming it.
In 1918 the Collaroy Progress Association and Collaroy SLSC lobbied the council to resume some of the beachfront land for the public and in that year the council began negotiating with Herbert Bors, who owned two beachfront lots immediately south of Collaroy St.
The council also began discussions with Stan Twight, who owned several lots immediately south of Bors’ two lots.
Twight had already built two structures on land he owned, including a real estate agency and tea rooms, while Bors was keen to build on his land.
Throughout 1920 and 1921, the council continued its attempts to obtain Bors’ two lots and eventually agreed to pay Bors £1500 for them.
The council then turned its attention to the six beachfront lots immediately south of Bors’ two lots, including four that were owned by Stan Twight.
Twight was keen to subdivide some of his land but the council did what it could to delay him.
At the same time, the council was also trying to obtain 10 lots on the northern side of Birdwood Ave and eastern side of Pittwater Rd in the Picnic Grounds Estate, some of which had already been built upon.
Things began to look up in May 1924, when Lands Minister Walter Wearne visited Collaroy at the invitation of Warringah Council and the Collaroy Progress Association.
Mr Wearne intimated that the state government might contribute one-third of the cost of resuming the land if the council undertook to repay to the government the other two-thirds of the cost, spread over a period of 20 years or more.
For its part, the Collaroy Progress Association was urged to raise as much money as it could from local residents and property owners to go towards the cost of the resumptions, expected to be about £3000.
It was estimated that the total cost of the resumptions would be about £18,000, of which the state government would donate £6000 and would lend the council what it need to make up the shortfall.
The council then obtained a loan of £9000 from the AMP Society to help cover the cost of the resumptions, after which it was a matter of working out how much compensation to pay the owners of the properties being resumed.
In February 1925, the resumption of 17 blocks of land behind Collaroy Beach was gazetted – six in the Mount Ramsay Estate, 10 in the Picnic Grounds Estate and an unnumbered lot between the two estates.
It meant the whole area east of Pittwater Rd between Birdwood Ave and Collaroy St, amounting to 2½ acres, or just over 1ha, was now in public ownership.
In 1926, Warringah Council was appointed the trustee of what was called the Collaroy Beach Reserved Area.
But the council was in no hurry to demolish all the buildings on the resumed properties and several were leased to their previous owners or to others.
One of Stan Twight’s sons, for example, leased a house that had been resumed on a block adjoining his father’s land, another son leased another of his father’s resumed properties, Ella Jackson leased her resumed home in Birdwood Ave and Robert Judd leased his resumed business premises and a resumed house until his death in 1928.
Some of the leases were for five years.
The council earned an income from the leases but it also earned income from the fees it charged for motorists to park their cars on the newly-created reserve, which went into the appropriately-named Collaroy Beach Reserve Income Account and was used to cover many of the costs involving the reserve, including large projects like the seawall to small ones like garden beds.
In the middle of the reserve that was created by the resumptions stands a stone drinking fountain, or bubbler, that was erected in 1927 at the request of the Collaroy Progress Association.
The fountain was erected as a memorial to the late William Makim, the former president of the Collaroy Progress Association while it was lobbying for the resumptions, the vice-patron of Collaroy SLSC, the first president and captain of the Collaroy Tennis Club and a Warringah councillor from December 1925 until his premature death in October 1926, aged 51.
The stone from the memorial was quarried from nearby Alexander St.
Bill Makim, who only moved to Collaroy from the country in 1921 due to ill health, is also remembered in Makim St at Dee Why and Makim Reserve at North Curl Curl.
By early 1929 all the compensation claims in connection with Collaroy Beach resumptions had been settled.
Eventually all the buildings on the resumed area were removed – some were demolished and the salvaged materials used elsewhere or sold, and some were moved to other locations.
In 1933, for instance, a hair salon called “Pauline’s” was moved to Griffith Park at Long Reef to be used by sporting clubs and a house called “Elanora” was supposed to be moved to Brookvale Park and used by the Electricity Department but instead was eventually demolished.
In the mid-1930s, there was talk of properties on the southern side of Birdwood Ave being resumed but the mid-1930s was a time of fiscal restraint, so nothing came of the talk.
In July 1938, the owners of Arlington Hall, Harold Beatty and Llewellyn Lowe, offered to sell Arlington Hall to the council for the purposes of a surf building and 929 square metres of vacant to it for the purpose of extending the beach reserve.
Unfortunately, the council informed Beatty and Lowe that it “cannot see its way to entertain the proposal”.
In 1941, the council did buy a block of land from Messrs Beatty and Lowe – a small block immediately south of Arlington Hall on which stood a rundown fish and chip shop called Anglers’ Inn that the council bought for £1300.
The shop was demolished and the area is now part of the small carpark immediately south of Arlington Hall.
In June 1945, the east coast was hit by powerful waves that destroyed two houses on the Collaroy beachfront and damaged eight more.
And while there had been some resistance from property owners at Collaroy in the mid-1920s to the resumption of their land, there was little opposition to the resumption of the properties between Arlington Hall and Jenkins St in the wake of the 1945 storm – the property owners were only too keen to sell before their houses fell into the sea and told the council they would accept the current unimproved capital value of their properties.
The cost of resuming the beachfront properties between Arlington Hall and Jenkins St was £2700, of which the Lands Department contributed £2000.
The resumption was gazetted in September 1947 and the resumed land is now a public carpark.
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